Aware ?

In managing learning and development at work, I (DD) used to talk about a model with my teams. How we start from "we do not know what we do not know" to 'how we dont realize that we know and do something like a finely tuned machine".

The four stages of development were:

1. Subconscious incompetence (I do not know what I do not know)
2. to Conscious incompetence (I now know what I dont know)
3. to conscious competence (I need to be aware of what I'm doing so that I can do right)
4. to subconscious competence (I just do it, muscle-memory and competence has taken over - just like riding a cycle)

I then applied this to DS's learning and this is where I got to - the labels were simple enough for him to understand and relate to.

1. Subconscious incompetence equates to his core deficits due to his condition - Challenge
2. Conscious incompetence - he develops self awareness about some of his limitations - Awareness
3. Conscious competence - he starts regulating some of his reactions, responses and emotion - Regulation
4. Subconcious competence - he has internalized it and certain things dont faze him any more - Habit

I drew this on his white-board and explained it to him with examples:

In certain cases, he is hovering between 2 and 3.  He is now communicating to us how he has made a lot of r wrong associations when he was young - for example, if he had a bad experience he used to associate that with some other visible symbol - his DM's dress etc; and then he'd start hating that; any references to that visible symbol would bring a bad reaction from him. A few days ago, he went from awareness to regulation. When he was at work (job-training), he said some memory was really bothering him; but since he was at work, he "pushed that memory out" so that he could be professional at work and didn't let that memory affect his work.

It was quite a good progress for us, when he was relating an past experience (through his stories), he used the verbiage in the model - how it was a challenge and how he is aware of it and that behaviour is slowly becoming an habit for him !!!

We need to continue to reiterate this framework to him !